Of Maps and Blindfolds
by Girl From Another World
Summary: They'd had their time prior to the torturous year they'd spent apart, time to love each other, to learn that being an us was so much more than being a me. Of course, nothing could compare to knowing that the one person you wanted was yours. Ginny and Harry were torn apart for a year by the war - and their hearts paid the price for it.


_Ginny and Harry discovered their love before the war tore them apart. Of course being the sacrificial people that they were, they separated themselves before that time came. So they spent a year in silence, unable to see each other or even send a message - both too fearful that even the subtlest of messages could prove fatal for the other. Their love never ceased, instead it remained pulsing and desperate inside their hearts. Their worry and fear fuelled the fires in their hearts, and they fought tirelessly in the hope of seeing each other again. They had their curses to live with in that year. Harry had the marauders map, and could see Ginny's every move in Hogwarts. But he couldn't resist looking at it, and he had to live with that pain when he ended up watching the piece of parchment for hours as Ginny was tortured and punished by the Carrows. Then she disappeared into the Room of Requirement for the last couple of months and he had no clue if she was alive or not. That was worse. Ginny had her own curse, and it was that she was constantly in the dark. She could read the newspaper reports on Harry's supposed whereabouts, or listen to the radios' speculation; but she never knew anything for sure. She was blindfolded from him._

_When the war was over and they were finally back in each other's arms, neither could decide which had the worse experience._

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They'd had their time prior to the torturous year they'd spent apart, time to love each other, to learn that being an us was so much more than being a me. Of course, nothing could compare to knowing that the one person you wanted was yours; so the year which Ginny spent trying to survive inside of what was meant to be the safest place in the wizarding world, while Harry chased Horcruxes, was more excruciating than they'd imagined it would be.

Of course, neither were as strong as everyone thought they were. The boy who lived and the feisty Weasley girl who always had a hex on the tip of her tongue: they were only children after all. This is what they tried to remind themselves after the war, what the psychiatrist told them to remember. They did everything they could.

Harry had ended up dreaming of Ginny more than he'd expected, the whispers they'd heard from Hogwarts about the Carrow twins and the dangerous path the students had been forced to tread in front of them causing his hands to tremble with worry for her. He checked the map at least three times a day, watching her go between lessons, she spent long hours in the common room at night, presumably comforting friends and the young ones. A few times he would catch her dot alone in a room with one of the Carrows, or at the front of one of their classes, and he would spend an hour watching her dot, as if this would keep her out of danger. He could only imagine the ordeals she was having to endure. In early March she disappeared off the map, and for a few days Harry frantically spent every spare minute searching for her on it. Eventually he figured out that she was either dead, or that she had taken refuge in the Room of Requirement. Either was equally possible. She was a blood-traitor after all, and her brother had a number on his head, and the rest of her family either on the run or managing to keep up the act of being civil. When the three of them made it to Hogwarts, and in the room of requirement of all places, Ginny's had been the first face she'd searched for. She'd hugged Ron first of course, a cry of relief leaving her lips as she touched him for the first time in nearly a year. But she'd embraced him soon enough, neither of them speaking, for words could not express the anguish the past months had placed on them.

Eventually he'd told Ginny all of this, many months after the war when they'd both begun to realise that it was easier to share their memories with someone else, someone who would understand everything they'd been through. Her face had gone hard as he'd relinquished his pain. Finally, once he was done talking and the room had reached a cold silence, she paused for a minute before speaking.  
"I never had a map." She'd whispered, her voice emotionless but her face so full of past pain. It had taken Harry a moment to understand what she'd meant by that, but when he did it was as if he was seeing her for the first time all over again. Only this time, he had an understanding of the true horrors she'd had to face in her year at Hogwarts. She'd never had a map. She had no way of knowing if he was alive or not, no way to see where he was, what he was doing, if he was in danger. She'd spent the whole year helplessly wondering, vainly trying to forget about him because her worrying was going to keep neither of them alive.

He wrapped her in his arms, and they both silently shed new tears. Not tears of grief or fear or pain, but of relief. Relief to share their burden with someone who knew what it was like to fear for someone else's life in a way that you could never fear for yours.

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